Bellingham Drag Strip

In 1953 three hot rod clubs, including the Road Gents and Sumas Road Angels, formed the 60-member Whatcom County Timing Association. With backing from the city and county, the Bellingham police and local businessmen, they got permission to race on an old Army access road at the southwest corner of Bellingham’s municipal airport. The airport opened in 1940, was used by the Air Force in World War II and went to Whatcom County for civil use after the war. The club leased the site for $1 a year for five years. City and county engineering workers laid out the course on their own time, WCTA members started clearing brush in April 1955, C. V. Wilder lent heavy equipment for grading, and the General Petroleum Corporation oiled the surface as a public service. The strip was half a mile long and 32 feet wide. General Petroleum offered to pave it, but engineers said the roadbed had to settle first. It was dedicated on August 16, 1953, with NHRA’s Wally Parks on hand.

In May 1954 the Bellingham police chief backed the project, and the hope was to widen the strip to 40 feet. When the blacktop went down, finished in late September 1954, it was 48 feet wide. Hot Rod Magazine ran photos of the strip in July 1954. After 1955 races were only occasional because of the site’s drawbacks: no proper access road, pit area, return road or spectator parking, and everything but the pavement was mud or dust depending on the weather. In 1958 the city and county offered free gravel, but the forty WCTA members couldn’t pay to haul it. Racing still happened that year, and the Bellingham Herald reported a race in early May 1958.